I'm almost embarassed to post this, what with my medical background, but we have no family doctor. Specialists, yes--Greg has a great dermatologist, we each have an orthopaedist we love and I see the best urologist in town--but no GPs. What can I say? I'm great at self-referring. I mean, when you can diagnose yourself well enough to know where you're going to wind up in the end, why not just make an appointment there to start with? Not only does it save time, it saves additional copays.

Fortunately, we have excellent insurance which allows me do this. However, my source for instant antibiotics (the UrgentCare place around the corner from our old house) has, in essence, just shriveled up and died. The copay just went from $20 to $50 for urgent care services. It is now more cost effective (and efficient, since we live next-door to the hospital) to find a designated family practice. There are probably 50 family practices within two miles of our house, so I did the adult thing this week and researched them. And got us both registered with our physician(s) of choice. I also managed to make myself a GYN appointment with another doctor I've had my eye on for awhile; turns out she is accepting new patients at the moment. So I'm very happy.

Now, we just have to undergo the arduous process of requisitioning past medical records. I have most of mine in my file cabinet, since I requested copies when my former doctor retired a few years ago, so it should just be a matter of drmellow rounding up his.

Comments

Usually, you write a letter to your doctor's office (or a designated storage facility, say, if your doctor has retired) requesting the copies for either yourself or for them to be transferred to a new physician. Frequently, physicians are willing to transfer records between offices without a charge, but will tack on a "copy fee" if you just want them for yourself.